Native, not a web view
One small Windows program with its own settings window. No browser engine, no runtime to install.
Live wallpaper for Windows
Glyphfall
Your desktop, alive. Glyph rain, lava, ink, a glowing tide, embers and fireflies, drawn live on your graphics card by one small native program.
- About 250 KB installer
- Runs offline
- No runtime to install
- Pauses behind fullscreen apps
- Scenes
- 6
- Glyph sets
- 13 + your own
- Looks
- 12 ready made
- Settings
- 30+
- Frame rate
- 15–120 fps
- Loop
- 30 min, seamless
Six scenes
One wallpaper, six moods
Each scene has its own colours, four palettes and a size setting, and every one answers to the shared speed, amount, glow, brightness, vignette and scanline controls. Hover a card to preview it behind the page. Click to keep it.
Palettes
Twelve looks
Start from a look, then change anything
A look sets the colours, characters, size, speed and effects in one go. The same twelve are in the app's control window.
Make it yours
Every part of the rain is a setting
Tap anything on this page and the background answers. Nothing here is a screenshot.
Characters
Thirteen built-in sets, or type your own. The glyphs are drawn once into a small texture; after that the graphics card only looks them up.
Colour
Five ways to colour the rain, plus a separate leading glyph so each drop has a bright head.
Direction
The rain can fall, rise, or run sideways. It is one setting, so you can switch at any time.
Fonts
Six typefaces, plus bold. The Pixel set ignores fonts and draws its own seven-by-five letters.
Sliders you can drag right here
The same ranges as the app. Double-click any slider to put it back.
Your characters
Type anything: a name, a word, a language the built-in sets do not have. Glyphfall rains exactly those characters.
The engine
Built to be small, smooth and forgotten
Most animated wallpapers play a video or push thousands of particles through the processor. Glyphfall draws every frame fresh on your graphics card, so it stays light and never repeats a clip.
Seamless
The motion loops perfectly over thirty minutes, so you never see a jump or a restart.
Easy on the machine
It uses the graphics card instead of the processor, and steps aside for games, videos and battery.
On your desktop
It sits behind everything, and stays out of the way
Glyphfall attaches to the layer under your desktop icons, the way a normal wallpaper does. It shows in the tray, and it gets out of the way when you need the graphics card.
Hide the desktop icons
One switch hides the icons so the wallpaper is clean. They come back when the wallpaper is turned off or Glyphfall closes, even after a crash.
Hide the taskbar
Uses Windows' own auto-hide, so the taskbar slides back in when the mouse reaches the edge of the screen. Undone on off and quit.
Pauses when it should
Behind a fullscreen game or video, behind a maximized window, or on battery power, as you choose. The graphics card goes to what you are actually looking at.
You choose the frame rate
15, 24, 30, 60 or 120 frames a second. The engine adds half a display frame of slack, so a 30 fps cap on a 60 Hz screen really is 30. Try it in the System tab; this page measures its own rate.
– fps measured here
Starts with Windows
Optional. Glyphfall lives in the tray, so it is there when you want the settings and gone from the taskbar when you do not.
See through to your own picture
Background opacity lays the rain over your real wallpaper, whatever its style: fill, fit, stretch, centre or tile. Drop it low for a glass look.
Offline, and it stays that way
Glyphfall draws everything on your own graphics card. It has no account, no sign-in and sends nothing about you anywhere. The one thing that touches the network is the "Check for updates" button in the System tab, and it only asks for a small file saying which version is newest.
The settings window is native too
It is drawn by the program itself, with a live preview that is one more rain surface, not a web view. Colours, drop-downs and the custom characters box all work without an internet connection.
Get Glyphfall
One purchase, yours to keep
$5
- All six scenes and every look
- Built-in update check
- Works fully offline
Buy Glyphfall
Payment link coming soon.
Payments are handled by a secure checkout. This site never sees your card.
Requirements
What you get, and what you need
Version 0.4.1.
After you buy, you get the installer.
- Run the installer. It takes a few seconds.
- Glyphfall starts in the tray and the wallpaper appears.
- Open the settings from the tray icon and pick a scene.
- Works on
- Windows 11. Made and tested there; Windows 10 has not been tried yet.
- Installer
- About 250 KB
- Needs
- A graphics card with Direct3D 11. Nothing else to install.
- Updates
- Check from the System tab, or ignore them
- Uninstall
- Windows Settings, Apps, like any other program.
Questions
Straight answers
Will it slow down my games?
It pauses itself behind fullscreen apps by default, so a game gets the whole graphics card. When it is running it uses the graphics card rather than the processor, and you can lower the frame rate or the glyph density if you want it lighter still.
Why does Windows warn me about the installer?
Glyphfall is a small new program and the installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may say it does not recognise it. That is the only reason. If you would rather not run it, the page and the engine on it are the same thing, so nothing is hidden.
Does it work on more than one monitor?
Multi-monitor layouts are not something I have confirmed on real hardware yet, so I will not promise it. Single-screen setups are what it has been tested on.
Does it use my own wallpaper picture?
Only if you lower the background opacity. Then Glyphfall reads your current Windows wallpaper, and lays the rain over it. If you use Windows Spotlight there is no file to read, so it falls back to your desktop colour.
Is this web page the actual wallpaper?
It is the same engine in a browser, so what you see here is what the program draws. The Windows program is a separate, native build, which is why it is so small and does not need a browser.
Why is the page a bit slower than the app?
A browser has a lot more to do than a wallpaper does. If your graphics card is struggling, this page quietly draws a smaller picture and stretches it. The System tab has the frame-rate setting.
Changelog
How it got here
- 0.4.1
Background opacity: lay the rain or any scene over your own wallpaper picture, from fully solid to nearly clear.
- 0.4.0
Six scenes: rain, lava, ink, tide, embers and fireflies, each with its own palettes and colours.
- 0.3.0
A native settings window replaces the old web one. Offline, small, with a live preview.
- 0.2.1
Hide the desktop icons and auto-hide the taskbar while the wallpaper is on.
- 0.2.0
The native engine: C++ and Direct3D 11, about 400 KB, instead of a web view.
- 0.1.x
The first versions, drawn through a web view. They worked, and used around 150 MB of memory, which is why the engine was rewritten.